Death at a Wedding Celebration

Walker - Petty Family

Did I ever tell you about my half 2nd cousin, once removed, Hobert Walker went to a party for his brother getting married and got killed?

My great-great grandfather, Elijah Petty (1803-1881), and his second wife Sarah Parker (1818-1897) had seven children.   

Mary Petty Walker

The oldest is Martha "Mary" Petty (1851-1945) married William Peyton Walker (1850-1936) and they had eight children.

Their third oldest William Richard Walker (1877-1958) married Alice Matilda Tiffar (1884-1946).  They had eight children also.

One of their sons, Lester William Walker (1909-1987) married Odean Tanner (1919-1992), on 23 March 1937.

Another of their sons, Hobert Walker(1915-1937) died on 23 March 1937, the day Lester and Odean were married,

Here is the only explanation I found:

Hobert and another boy were carrying Lester on a rail during what was called a (Sereande) to celebrate the marriage of Lester and Dean Tanner.  Some accident happened to Hobert that caused him to lose his life.

Old Postcard of Selma, Alabama

This is an old postcard of Main Street, Selma, Alabama.  I wonder what the post in the middle of Main Street is?

Years Ago, All 3 of These Men Were Teenagers

click on picture to make larger

Horace, Hugs, and Ronnie at a Bell Reunion.

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! England's Queen

We are fascinated by England's queens.  On one series we are trying to catch up on the Queen Victoria installments.  

Another series is about the present queen, Queen Elizabeth, which has been sitting on the throne longer than any other.

Here is HUMBUG Magazine's  take on Queen Elizabeth on her anticipated visit in the 1950s.

Cover art by Will Elder.  Story art by Arnold Roth.

click on each page to make it larger, readable, and understandable.

Watching People's Habits

The other day we had one of our credit cards compromised twice.   One success and one unsuccessful.  Both happened at the Walmart in Holly Springs, Georgia, only a couple minutes apart.  First the credit card bought $408 worth and the second time $330 worth, but the last one was denied.

The computerize data system knows about our spending habits more than we do ourselves.  The system probably knows I have never bought anything at that Wallmart in Holly Springs and probably it bought something that is not in my mindset.  I wonder what I could be?  Maxwell House Coffee not on sale?  Name-brand clothing?  clothing for a person half my size?

But what did they buy on the first purchase that did not raise red flags?  I need to find out, it might be something I would have bought if I knew it was available. 

It is a scary feeling knowing those who run the show know more about you than thyself.  There is a book I read in the 1950s or 60s called "HIDDEN PERSUADERS" that tell how the advertising industry has studied us and know our every wants and not-wants.  They know what color to make the box to temp you to buy and what kind of picture to have of their product.  

It is like the book 1984  by George Orwell:   "Big Brother is watching you!"

However, in case of clamping down on whoever was using our credit card, that is a good thing to know when a person spends outside of the character the victim has painted of himself.

I try to remember to take a sip of red wine before going to bed every night.  I heard it is good for you.  Maybe the person bought a bottle of red wine that cost over $6 and the system knew it couldn't be Eddie Hunter!

Bob's Bob Halliday's Garage

A few years ago Bob Halliday contacted me because he knew I was a nostalgia nut, sort of.

Bob owns Bob's Garage, a shop/museum that restores old stuff to look   like like new.  He restores old cars,  gasoline pumps, Coke machines, signs, you name it is located off Shallowford Road, near Horsetown.

Although I was intrigued, I wasn't sure I could do much for him.  I passed the buck the Marietta Museum of History.

I once read that when Bob was a kid his folks ran the Georgian Oaks Motel across from Dobbins on the 4-Lane.  That is where he learned to repair vending machines and signs, which was his calling.
Speaking of the Georgian Oaks Motel I have another facebook friend who had a girlfriend, or co-worker, I forgot which, that intentionally set the Georgian Oaks Motel on fire and destroyed it.  Small World.

I see there is an article in te latest GEM GEORGIA MAGAZINE  (March 2017).  For a link to the article

CLICK HERE

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/gemc/georgia_201703/index.php#/24

Throwback Thursday: Claudius Linton Foster (1888-1965).

click on proof to see it better.

Throwback Thursday:  These proofs are of Anna's mother's father's brother Claudius Linton Foster (1888-1965):

Hat on; hat off;  and maybe  "Do something with your hands."

Claudius was a young man in the pictures.  They might have been taken about 1910.

I'm With Stupid

According to UNCLE JOHN'S BATHROOM READER Page-a-Day Calendar today comedian Kurt Braunohler  was born this date in 1974.

UNCLE JOHN goes on to say in 2014 on the website Kickstarter,  Braunohler  posted a plea for &4000 for a sky writer plane pilot to write something stupid in the sky.  He did.  The pilot wrote in the sky:  HOW DO I LAND"

He collected $6820, which is $2820 over than he asked for.

I suspect if you said you plan to help the needy with the money you would probably not reach your goal.  Let that be a lesson to you:  If you want money than you ask for, publicly announce that you will do something stupid with it."

Because It's There

Glover Park

Marietta, Georgia

HAPPY PRESIDENTS' DAY!!

HAPPY PRESIDENTS' DAY!!

David Clackum Moved On

Another old friend has left us.  Dave Clackum, age 76.  I have known Dave since Waterman Street Grammar School.  Also, he and his family lived next door to my grandmother.

As preteens, bicycle age, we both had paper routes over roughly the same neighborhood.  Dave delivered the Marietta Journal and I the Atlanta Journal.  Many days we walked together as we distributed our papers, sharing with each other our woes and crushes.  Those were the days.

The Alvin Ridley Mystery

Attn Petty First Cousins:  Ready for some interesting Ridley genealogy information?

Our grandmother Frances Viola Ridley (1885-1968) married William Elijah Joseph Petty.

Viola's parents were Thomas Jefferson Ridley (1859-1938) and Maryetta Ludarken Pullen (1856-1914).

Thomas Jefferson Ridley's parents were Henry Ridley, Sr (1833-1901) and Nellie Malinda Killian (1824-1898).

Henry's parents were William Ridley (1803-1903) and Mary Polly Giles (1801-1875).

William's parents were Matthew Ridley (abt 1782-bef 1830) and Mary Feagans (abt 1785-  ?   ).

Matthews parents were William Ridley (1739-abt 1825 -  ?   ) and  Jane Purlsey (abt 1750 -   ?  ).

William was born in England and Jane was born in Ireland.  William was a shoe cobbler and teacher in Boston when he enlisted into the America Army and fought in the Revolutionary War, where he met Jane in the Kings Mountain town, near Kings Mountain, near the border of North and South Carolinas.

William and Jane had six children:  one daughter and five boys.  One son was named William Ridley, Jr (1783 -     ? ).  William married  Mary Ann Smith and they also had five sons and one daughter.  Then, Mary Ann died and William married Margaret Maxwell.  They had one son.  Then William died.

Now, get this:  Margaret sold three of her five stepsons into servitude.

HOWEVER!!  They ran away or escaped.  Ales, Charles, and Asa Ridley went to Tennessee, just above the Alabama state line, Eastern Alabama, in the Sands Mountain area, and as far south as Heard County, Georgia.  Of course the three brothers off-springs multiplied, and some of the extended families ended up in Chattanooga and Ringgold, Georgia.

Now back to our Grandma Petty: Frances Viola Ridley.  Her closer Ridley kin have also multiplied and extended the extended families.  They are in Chattanooga, Ringgold,  and so on. 

My point is both sets of Ridleys have detailed listings of all their family members, but somehow Alvin Ridley, TV retired TV repairman in Ringgold, Georgia, is not listed in at all.

Who is Alvin Ridley?

Alvin Ridley is a very eccentric man who was accused of keeping his wife locked up in their house and starving her to death.  He had to go to trial and the jury found him not guilty.  The reason was, being a recluse he refused to let anybody in their house.  When his lawyer tricked him into getting into the house, the lawyer found the alibi proof he needed:  Walls covered with paper with crammed notes on each sheet of paper written by his wife Virginia.   She wrote her opinion on everything and when she ran out of opinions she would write poetry.  She wrote she quit taking her medicine and she autopsy showed she had the same symptoms of somebody with her disease, if they had quit taking their medicines.

I saw two TV specials on Alvin Ridley through the last dozen years and this weekend I heard a NPR program with his lawyer, the last elected Democrat in office, in Ringgold, talking and recounting it all.

With a little mini-research I found Alvin was born in 1943 and with further research I cannot find him listed in any Ridley family papers.  Apparently, neither Ridley group one wants to claim him

Benjamin & Rocky Visit 2-18-17

Benjamin and Willow

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! HELP's Gallery of Cartoons.

Click on each cartoon to see and read it better.

HELP Magazine, edited by Harvey Kurtzman and published by Jim Warren of Warren Publishing  operated on a shoestring budget in the 1960s.  It never made much profit and finally folded.

It paid $5 for each free-lance cartoon it used.  Some famous cartoonists got their start in HELP'S Gallery such as Skip Williamson, Gilbert Shelton, and Robert Crumb.

These were in HELP #9.  I left a few out because I felt they were in bad taste.  If I thought they were in bad case, well...

In error this was published about 12 hours before it should have.

Small World

Beth Baker Sorrells and Harry Hanson at a Varner Reunion.

 

I probably knew Harry when he was a baby.  We lived next door to his family in the Clay Homes.

Beth and I are half-in-laws, so to speak.

Her husband Dickey and Anna's half-brother Tommy Dickerson Prance are first cousins.  They share the same grandparents Homer Dickerson and Newtonia Morris Kemp. 

To some Tommy's nickname is "Dickey".  They probably share the same nickname  they got from the same grandpa.

Benjamin and Sabrina Sightings

Click on each to make it bigger.

Photos by Sabrina and maybe Rocky

Throwback Thursday: Photographing the Dead

Back in the early part of the 20th Century it was not unusual to photograph the dead.

Here are two pictures of Anna's mother Marie, her two brothers Paul and Charles with a brother that didn't make it, and in one picture is their father Paul Everett Foster, Sr.

They had three brothers to die the day they were born: James 1927, John 1928, and Charles Wilson Foster 1930.

Their sister Eloise was not born yet (1932).  She lived.

Kristin and Danny Lip syncing

Here is a newly discovered funny talented couple.  New to me, anyhow.

Apparently, they have a bunch of videos and they release a new one every Friday.  The few I watched all takes place in their automobile's front seat.

They lip sync so funny.  It reminds me of the old Merry Mutes in Atlanta Wit'z End in the 60s and 70s.

Take it away Kristin and Danny!

Harvey Kurtzman, Creator of MAD

I just read HARVEY KURTZMAN THE MAN WHO CREATED MAD AND REVOLUTIONIZED HUMOR IN AMERICA  by Bill Schelly.

The title tells the meat of the whole book.  Harvey Kurtzman created MAD comic book.  Harvey was an editor for EC Comics creating war stories when, to make more money, with the owner Bill Gaines' approval created MAD.  After MAD built it own momentum with a big circulation the Comic Code was formed to restrict comic books' press liberties, and of course, for the sake of not warping children, Kurtzman talked Gaines into making MAD a magazine, which he did and it became even more successful.  But it still had a select audience.  Then Kurtzman demanded 51% of the MAD stocks and Gaines fired him.

He and Gaines held ill feelings for each other for many years afterwards, but came around speaking finally.

At one time before the breakup Bill Gaines was a regular guest at the Kurtzmans' house.

When Bill Gaines fired Kurtzman he rehired his horror comic book editor Al Feldstein to take Kurtzman's place.  Feldstein redirected the readership from sophisticated some college to preteen.  The increase in sales was huge.

In the meantime Kurtzman started TRUMP Magazine, published by PLAYBOY, much like his MAD Magazine in sophistication but it lasted only two issues .  Too much meddling from the mother publishing company.

Then he started HUMBUG, which all the artists were owners and it took all their savings so they hung it up after eleven issues.

Then HELP Magazine published by Warren Publishing.  It never made a go either.

Harvey Kurtzman's brand of humor was just too unique for the masses to catch on.

His last bread and butter was Annie Fannie in PLAYBOY, which kept his and artist Will Elder's families fed but they never got wealthy over their artsy enterprises.
One reoccurring theme, or weakness,  throughout the book was that Harvey was a perfectionist.  Which he often did not make deadlines, which were costly.
Also, late in his life he took on a new career of teaching comic booking at a New York art school.  His classes were the star of the school, most of the time packed.

It is a good book telling much behind the scene details of the business end of comic publishing and how Kurtzman and his close band made sacrifices to keep their humor alive.

Underground artists give Kurtzman credit for being the father of Underground Comix which typically Harvey said he demanded a blood test.

He suffered from Parkinson's disease which finally brought him down.

Harvey Kurtzman was my hero.  

Rhonda Sue Petty (1941-2017)

As I remember her

My sweet cousin has left us.  Rhonda Sue Petty Thweatt (1941-2017).   Rhonda was the second of four children (daughters) of Wallace Charles Petty (1910-2007) and Thelma Jeannete Cox Petty (1908-1994). 

Rhonda's siblings:  

Harriet
Mary Beth (1944-2008)
Cheryl

Rhonda spent most her formative years in Springplace of Murray County, Georgia.  Her parents were educators first and secondly, farmers.  They raised cattle and chickens for egg production, of of course the daughters provided much of the labor.
Then the family moved to Augusta, then Milledgeville, Georgia.

Rhonda was an artist and art teacher.  She Married,  30 March 1963, in Baldwin County, Georgia, to John Dorman Thweatt (1938-2012).  John too was a teacher.  As her parents were, they were both educators.

They had two children:

Wallace Charles Thweatt.  Wallace became his parents' care keeper. 
Lisa Marie Thweatt (married Daniel E. Kornegay.(3 children)

Mary Beth in center, Harriet on left and Rhonda right.

Second row, right end: Frances has her arms around Harriet (left) and Rhonda (right)

On the front left end are Harriet, Rhonda, and MaryBeth in front of them.

Sisters Cheryl and Rhonda

Rhonda at father's graveside burial

Rhona front. back Cheryl, and Harriet right.

HAPPY CLEAN OUT YOUR COMPUTER DAY

Today is National Clean Out Your Computer Day.  If you do, be very selective, remember, what you delete might be gone forever.

Click on image to make it enormously scary.

Frank Frazetta's QUEEN KONG

SUNDAY FUNNIES!! LI'L ABNER RIDES AGAIN by Al Capp

click on each set to enlarge to be readable and understandable.